"You Gave Up on Us": Brother of Late Shoshana Strook Shares Heartbreaking Letter
Yedidya Struck, brother of the late Shoshana Strook, publishes a haunting farewell letter. He describes her transformation after a "shattering" trauma and his struggle with the anger and love left behind after her battle with mental illness.
Amidst the public and political storm following the passing of Shoshana Strook, her younger brother, Yedidya (Didush) Strook, has broken his silence. In a vulnerable text titled "A Race Against the Shadows," Yedidia portrays Shoshana not as a political figure's daughter, but as a sister who was "like a mother" to him before being "shattered" by trauma.
Yedidia describes a pivotal turning point ten years ago when Shoshana returned from an extended trip abroad. "My body trembles when I remember how you returned—injured and crushed," he wrote. "Not at all like the sister I knew. Barely resembling a human being."
He details the role reversal that followed, where he, the younger brother, became the caregiver for a sister suffering from severe post-trauma and schizophrenia.
For nearly a decade, the Strook family lived in a state of constant "adrenaline," reacting to Shoshana’s alternating periods of stability and total collapse.
Yedidya praised her years of heroism in "choosing sanity" and "fighting hallucinations." He noted that while he does not judge her, the last period was marked by a decline in her willingness to seek treatment.
In the most striking part of the letter, Yedidya addresses the complexity of grief mixed with resentment toward the disease that took her away long before her physical death: "There is anger in me over the way you chose, recently, to deal with the illness. Anger that you stopped treating yourself... that you gave up on your rehabilitation, gave up on us, gave up on me—and worst of all, gave up on yourself."
Despite the pain, Yedidya concluded with a message of deep sibling bond, quoting poetry to describe her soul as a "frightened bird" seeking a window. "I didn't want your journey to end like this," he wrote. "All the fears, the worries, the hopes—it’s all over now."